The Four Winds, Cusseta, Georgia ***

Oh, Lordy. Let's just put it this way: The Four Winds, located on the edge of Fort Benning, home of the U.S. Army Ranger Training School, is the home of the world famous Ranger Burger ... and the Master Gunner Burger, and the Sniper Burger and the Special Forces Burger ... You get the idea. These burgers are HUMONGOUS -- real heartstoppers. Should you want to know, there's an annual Ranger Burger eating contest.

The Ranger Burger also serves a very good fried catfish plate, and they serve steaks and a few other items.

The place is a weird mish-mash of put-together rooms and buildings that have evolved over time. What some folks don't know is that down underneath all that is a plastic log cabin. I kid you not. At one point, in one of its incarnations, the Four Winds (I think it had a different name then.) had an exterior that was a plastic log cabin. But, alas, the plastic log cabin has been covered over with something more, well, tasteful.

Do not, however, despair that the place has been too gentrified. It has not. Case in point: My favorite element of The Four Winds -- their sign out front. Mounted very high on a pole in the middle of the parking lot is a big plastic sign that sports a huge hamburger from one side of which a paratrooper is parachuting, and from the other side of which a soldier (My guess is it's a Ranger.) is rapalling. I guess the owners had the thing custom made, 'cause I seriously doubt that there's another one like it in the whole wide world.

Mel Gibson has eaten in the Four Winds. Yep. He was in town for the filming of the movie We Were Soldiers, and he stopped in at the Four Winds. I hear that the waitresses weren't even impressed. One of them was quoted in the newspaper as having commented, "He was just another customer to me."

Speaking of service at The Four Winds, it needs help. There's this one terrific waitress there, but she's so overworked it's pitiful. I think the place lacks in the management division.

The clientele is as interesting as the food. The dining room is huge, and it's occupied by a combination of Rangers just in from the field, deer hunters, and all sorts of other locals, including the Chattahoochee County High Sheriff who's usually perched at the table near the door, overseeing the speed trap his deputies operate out on Highway 26. (Don't say you ain't been warned.)

So, long live places like The Four Winds. It's just that I don't wanna go too often -- ya know?

Minnie's, Columbus, Georgia ***

Minnie's is a local institution in Columbus, and deservedly so. It's cafeteria-style -- You carry a tray through a line where the women servers behind the line ask you "Whatchoo want, Darlin?" "You want some gravy on that, Sweetie?" "Cornbread or biscuit, Honey?" This kinds talk gets on ol' sweet Edna Earl's nerves, to tell you the truth, but some folks seem to like it. And, oh yeah, it don't matter WHO you are -- you're gonna get the "Honey" and "Sweetie" and "Darlin" bit.

Food is good but not great. It's traditional Southern, cooked by somebody who is an okay cook but not one of the masters. (There are those whose Southern cooking is, somehow, by some mysterious stroke, a cut above the others. Minnie's is not one of those.) That is, it's okay, but it ain't inspired. Edna Earl suspects that many of the vegetables are of the canned or, at very best, frozen variety.

Minnie's dining room is huge, with several different rooms, actually, and you're liable to see anybody in there. Since Minnie's is near the courthouse, it's a favorite of the legal crowd.

Edna Earl has recently several times been put off by the fact that the place often smells of Lysol.

One thing Edna Earl does like about Minnie's is the fact that you get your own little pitcher of tea, so you don't have to depend on somebody to come fill your glass.

One thing Edna Earl doesn't like about Minnie's is the PLASTIC UTENSILS! Would it be too much trouble to have real forks and spoons and knives?! And styrofoam plates give Edna Earl the heebie-jeebies, too.

Still, Minnie's is a great place for a local experience.

Cozy Soup 'n Burger, Broadway near 8th, Manhattan ***

This is my second favorite diner in Greenwich Village (second to The Waverly). The waiters here are a little less friendly, but the food is good. They have these humongous hamburgers that hamburger people (I'm not one.) seem to like. Also, the milkshake people seem to flock here, too. (I'd like to be a milkshake person, but, alas, a weight consciousness prevents me.) The other night I arrived in New York on one of those damp, very chilly evenings. In the course of getting here and getting checked into my room I'd become drenched and thoroughly chilled, and hungry. So I popped over to the Cozy and ordered a cup of their French Onion Soup. Boy, did it ever hit the spot! So thanks, Cozy Soup 'n Burger, for being there when I needed you.

R.J. Barrel and Co., Canton, Mississippi ***

Great place for a beer and a pizza -- or a calzone -- or a homemade cinnamon roll. The guy who owns this place makes his own bread -- for pizza crust, for calzone, for cinnamon rolls -- from scratch -- and that's a rarity these days, especially in the South. We've never had much of a bread tradition down here except for biscuits and cornbread, and even those are either packaged or frozen these days, most places. So it was refreshing to actually walk into a restaurant and smell yeast bread baking. The place is very casual -- lots of Little Leaguers there the day we visited. Prime location right there overlooking the BEAUTIFUL Canton, Mississippi, town square. This place gets our recommendation -- if what you're looking for is casual and "Italian."